Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Welcome everyone. We’ve got a really exciting conversation, but I want to start out with the statistics. According to a recent study by Glassdoor about 40% of us in the US Workforce our parents with a child age 18 or at home raising children is not just a lifestyle Choice. It is also key to the stability of Economies and countries today. We’re joined by two talented women to discuss how companies can better support parents before and after welcoming a son or daughter into their family. Thanks for joining us, Kristina and Mickelle.

Kristina Peterson (Guest): Thanks for having us.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Thank you.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So let’s hear a little bit more about Kristina and Mickelle. So Kristina Peterson (Guest) is a regional vice president at a dynamic full service recruiting and Staffing Solutions firm. She originally opened the Logan Utah branch in 2012 where she currently leads operations prior to working at Nexio Kristina held the role of national and international account rep and marketing coordinator for JJ Cole collections a boutique juvenile products brand Kristina received her bachelor’s degree from the John M Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University in 2011 and continues to cheer on the Aggies to this day. And for those who listen with us, where I use fans, too.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): She’s so happy to be living and raising her family in cash value Utah surrounded by friends and family. Thanks for coming Kristina and we’ll also hear about So Mickelle Anderson is a human resources professional at Space Dynamics laboratory a nonprofit government contractor owned by Utah State University that builds satellites sensors and more Mickelle received both her undergraduate and graduate degrees in human resource management from Utah State University. and a professional and human resources

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): certification from the human resource certification Institute with over a decade of experience and talent acquisition compliance and compensation. She has conducted hundreds of interviews, has updated and written numerous company-wide policies and procedures and has percentage classes on various topics outside the office. She enjoys lifting weights, reading music, eating Mexican food and spending time with her husband and three kids. So good to have both of you here and fellow USU alumni. We’re so excited to learn from you. And I’ve had the opportunity to learn from both of them at different presentations for our local Sherm chapter. Thank you so much for being here. We’re excited to have you guys and learn more from you.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Kristina Peterson (Guest): When I appreciate the opportunity.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Fantastic. So this is our first episode we’ve ever done that has four of us having a conversation and so we’re excited to have a little bit more dynamic to the conversation. We’ve got a few really awesome questions that I know everyone listening is going to get some value to help you navigate supporting parents better in the workforce. So let’s start off. The conversation Mickelle tells us a little bit about FMLA leave for people who don’t really know what it provides and not provide working moms. Let’s kind of start the ground conversation there of bare minimums of what the government requires you to do, and before we go into that I just

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Said she’s been through the experience of having kids while working and same with Kristina and Kristina’s actually pregnant right now, and I actually just had a baby a month ago. And so we’re all kind of in this right now and so it’s very relevant. And so yeah, let’s get into the FMLA and learn about that.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) I appreciate that. Yes, I have been in the trenches with all of this. So we have professionals and…

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yes.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) personal experience with it for But yes, let me type in so final it stands for the Family and Medical Leave Act and it provides eligible employees in the United States with job protected unpaid leave for certain family and medical conditions. So the birth of a new baby would fall under this act which the FMLA offers working parents. Let’s first of all talk about who would applies to so it applies to mothers fathers adoptive parents and even foster parents equally if the eligibility criteria is met it allows up to 12 weeks of leave over a 12-month period for the birth or adoption of a child and this would include the recovery time for our birth mamas you are able to use the FM.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) They leave intermittently or on a reduced schedule if it’s medically necessary or agreed upon by your employer. So in the instance, for example, you have a child who has a medical condition that requires them to stay in the NICU for a little bit. You could utilize ethanol to kind of take more of an intermittently so you don’t have to use it. All right after the fact

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) And one other thing to mention that it provides job protection? So employee employees are guaranteed to return to their same or equivalent position after the leave ends. So that’s what it doesn’t provide. So FMLA itself is unpaid although employers may allow the parents to use sick leave or vacation pay currently with it. It’s not seen as a direct wage replacement. So kind of along that same line. It does not guarantee a parental or maternity leave that’s really up to your employer and what policies they have for Parental or maternity leave or the state that you live in as well. So unpaid only at the federal level is what FMLA provides

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Fantastic and correct me if I’m wrong on this but it only is legally required by employers with 50 employees or more. Is that Okay, so I can start up? You’ve got 12 employees,…

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Correct.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): there is no FMLA, right?

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Yes. it definitely is not required. I am a big advocate of doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do…

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): A hundred yeah.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) but yes from a legal perspective if you have 50 or under you’re not obligated to do it to follow it.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay, I would have been so nice to know with our second child. She was in Nike for a week and there is paternity leave but really good to…

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So what is the pregnant workers Fairness Act and when might that become law?

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Yes, so this is a newer law that has gone into place. So let me kind of first introduce it a little bit. So the pregnancy workers Fairness Act or what’s known as pwfa requires employers who have at least 15 employees or more to provide reasonable accommodations for employees that are pregnant or recently have a baby through the birth of a child or any related medical conditions. As long as it doesn’t impose any kind of undue hardship to the company and so accommodations could involve scheduling changes, I think about women who suffer from

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Sickness, for example, this could be an accommodation that they could go to their employer and say hey, I’m really struggling in the mornings with severe morning sickness. Could you Flex my schedule while I get through this first trimester of however long your morning sickness lasts for another example could be equipment modification so near the end of your pregnancy, you get things get pretty uncomfortable and maybe you need a standing desk or maybe you need a more comfortable chair to help you sit for longer periods of times anything like light duty assignments. So if you have to lift things regularly, you could ask for accommodation to have somebody else help you during that time and then of course more frequent breaks too. So if you need to stand up or stretch do anything that helps your body feel good during that time those could all be seen as accommodations under this new law this law also,

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Its employers from denying or promoting women who need pregnancy accommodations. And as long as women can perform the essential tasks of the job. They should be eligible for those promotions or job opportunities as well.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) And then in terms of going into effect, so at the end of 2022 President Biden actually signed the pwfa into law and on June 27th of this year that law became effective. So the equal employment opportunity commission or the EEOC who enforces this pwfa and they actually started accepting charges of discrimination claims the day that it became effective. So the law in effect has been…

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): while

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) since June but we are still waiting on the EEOC to publish the regulations or the ruling on the law. So basically what that means is that the agency takes the law, they interpret the new law and then they provide some detailed examples to employers on how they can better understand the new law, what their obligations are and then ultimately how they can best comply with this. So waiting on the role that the law is in effect.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow, that’s some incredibly important information and I would say for anyone listening, go look up a recent news article from the time that this has been recorded to anything that’s more recent when you’re listening to this recording of very important and relevant information. Thank you. Mickelle. So Kristina,…

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) You’re welcome.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Let’s come over to you. We know you have a lot of wisdom and experience from your lived experience both being a Perfection professional and a mom. So first question for you, if you could go back in time before having your first child, what would you have done differently?

Kristina Peterson (Guest): I have thought about this and how to think back to almost a decade ago now and I really had one main thing come to mind and I was a little hesitant to share that first, but then I decided hey I bet I’m not the only one that’s in this boat. So I am gonna share it and ensure I wish I would have been a better advocate for myself. And I think this is so important not only in your professional life, but you’re gonna see you need to do that all along the way through your medical Journey with your children period and raising them, but I work for next year then as well great company, but we were a lot smaller and younger than

Kristina Peterson (Guest): And just like Mickelle mentioned companies under 50, aren’t held to some of the same standards as some over 50 and I think in conjunction with that as well, you may more commonly see less official policies or procedures and processes in place with these smaller businesses will almost half of the US Workforce works for a smaller business. And so I don’t think I’m the only one in this boat, but I really could have done a better job to work with my company to make a plan for when I would be out on maternity. So I think some of these big companies might already have these processes in place that they go down a line in making a plan and organizing what’s going to happen, but that’s something that I would have changed because I ended up going back to work about a week after

Kristina Peterson (Guest): I had my baby and luckily my company was great and they let me do it from home. We’re really flexible that way but I had opened a branch just a few years prior. So we were pretty small as far as the support that I had locally.

Kristina Peterson (Guest): And I’ll still always remember. I mean someone for my management team must have come up here because they got me a physical very generous gift card to one of the local baby stores. So they were really accepting and excited and supported that way but where there was some black was just in the planning and preparation of coverage while I was out and I’d love to have I think some of that time back if I were to do it all over again, but other than that, I’m really proud of how we went about preparing Our Lives. I think that another conversation about having a baby is more to me than just an emotional decision. I mean, I wouldn’t go out on a woman just buy a house, that is a life-changing decision and I think that they use even more so than that, you’re good.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

Kristina Peterson (Guest): You’re gonna have them for the rest of probably your life and so there’s a lot that needs to be accounted for to get your lives in a good space so that you are prepared and ready financially and personally to have that big change happen in your life.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I think that’s a really good perspective to have and all those of us who have had a baby and even not like those newborns are so precious and the time goes by so fast and you want to enjoy it while it lasts and you’re right. It’s the biggest decision to have a child. And so with that perspective in mind. Do you have any advice for individuals, before your baby comes I know you have had a lot of morning sickness with your pregnancy you were mentioning that and then also while you’re on your parental leave and then how to transition back into working.

Kristina Peterson (Guest): Yeah, absolutely before the baby comes be excited and try not to have much guilt. I think we hear a lot about Mom and that almost comes whether you welcome it or not, but I’ve experienced this and a lot of my answers are advice to myself in my time now as well as with my prior pregnancies and so I think try not to have too much guilt, but it isn’t uncommon because you do know that burden of your absence is going to be passed off to your coworkers. And so that’s a hard thing to swallow but I think it’s a big life event and get ready and be excited. I would say Nest at home as well as at work. We hear this term nesting which means you’re really getting prepared and ready for this huge change. That’s about to occur in your life. And I think not only do you need to do it.

Kristina Peterson (Guest): Personally and at home in preparation for the baby and making space and making accommodations and adjustments and plans, but also at work, what’s your coverage going to look like? How do you want it to happen? I mean even yesterday. I was updating some notes really with the intent and thought of going out for some time. So I need things to move smoothly. And so I need to help my team and my co-workers be prepared to have the information in front of them that they need in order to make that happen. And then as far as while being on Parental leave.

Kristina Peterson (Guest): Once again and advice to myself because I am one to always be entrenched in my work but really enjoy that time and try to disconnect as much as possible because you’re not gonna get it back and it is a big life change whether it’s your first or second third be on that they’re always is an adjustment period And I think it’s important to be there and be present everything you do. And I know the last question you asked was after returning to work without any specific advice and this one might be a little bit of a soapbox for me. But if I were to give advice to anyone I would say first off return to work

Kristina Peterson (Guest): I think you can have a lot of preconceived notions about what they’re going to look like after you have your baby and I think it’s so important for women to give themselves the experience and opportunity to know what it’s like to be a working mom and that way you have context whether you decide to then be a stay at home mom, look for different work or ask for an adjusted schedule or return full time. I think context is so important because it helps us to be grateful for what we have and to make the best decisions for ourselves personally, professionally and our families.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, that’s a good point. And I was wondering Mickelle if you have anything to add to what she said just with your own experiences and your perspectives.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) My goodness. That was so well said Kristina. Just a couple of thoughts came to my mind when you were talking. I can relate to the guilt that you were talking about. You shouldn’t feel guilty about having a baby. It’s a very natural thing to want to grow your family. But there is that stress of my goodness. I’m gonna overburden my work colleagues when I’m gone and they’re gonna have to take all of this on but yeah, my biggest advice would be don’t feel like you have to apologize for having a baby do your prep work ahead of time work on documenting the work that you do right procedures for those things so that when you do have the baby, hopefully you feel a little less guilt in that you’ve prepared yourself and your team as much as possible in order to help alleviate some of that guilt that you may have it never really fully goes away.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Especially when it’s a busy time in the office, but I think doing as much as you can to prepare ahead of time. I have found it helped me a lot with that guilt. And then just the cho what Kristina said after that baby comes just soak it all in, unless it’s one of those things where that you hear this advice a lot as a new parent, especially with your first baby the time goes by so bad and at the time you’re okay, but actually having three kids now, it’s like I blink in my oldest is eight now and I just feel like it flew by and that advice was so true, even though at the time I couldn’t fully appreciate it but they are just so little for such a short time and you want your head to be in the present. Just enjoying those baby snuggles taking care of yourself having a baby is

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) not easy in terms of just recovery. And then you have on top of that to take care of a new baby in your sleep-deprived and then if you have other children at home, it’s a lot you need to allow yourself to take a step back and recover physically and mentally and just to enjoy those time with your kids. And then your last question is like advice for coming back. I’m with Kristina. I could have a soapbox. We can probably have a whole other episode.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) This but my biggest thing would be patience and having Grace with yourself. You’re not the same person that you were before. You had that baby. Even after having three kids. You’re now a mama three Rises, a mom of two. It’s an adjustment or at least for me. I found it to be an adjustment every single time. I came back because I came back with all three of my kids. I thought that it was hard every time albeit. I had a little bit more understanding of what to expect going into it the second and third time but it didn’t make it any easier. It was still really hard. My heart was in both places. So I just advise you to just have Grace and have patience with yourself. It’s an adjustment to your supervisors. They hopefully understand that and if they don’t this is your opportunity to advocate for yourself and to educate your employer on what

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) you desire what you expect as you come back in and it’s okay to ask for those things as well.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, and I think a good employer will be understanding maybe they’re, not familiar with what that experience is, or maybe they are but when you help communicate that to them I think and understanding employer will, be an advocate for you at that point and obviously just from both of you what you were saying about your experiences. It’s obvious that you care about your work and that you want to be reliable and

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Prepare your employer the best that you’re able to and I think it goes both ways. Right? So your employer helping you transition to that and you helping them transition to it as well as best as you can and it’s also an adjustment for the kids that you already have at home for them to get a new sibling, So it’s a big life event. I love everything you guys said great advice and then we want to end on this question. You’ve led some program creation efforts at sdl McHale. So can you tell us about them for other companies that may be looking to enhance how they support working parents?

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Absolutely, so I don’t want to paint my company and we are perfect because no company is and how this all started was actually due to an employee who came forward. She had had a baby and was pumping and was just really discouraged and disappointed in the state of our mother’s rooms. And I actually had just shortly come off a maternity leave with my last baby when this had happened and I said,

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Show me where you go and pump and she proceeded to take me into this location where it was the saddest thing. It was so embarrassing. It was this locker room that had this chair that was just facing the opposite way of the door. And It was really embarrassing. I felt for her deeply as someone who was also pumping at the time. I was just heartbroken that we had put her into this kind of situation and knew that we needed to take immediate action to improve these spaces. And so what I did is

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) I walked around our entire campus and just looked at the state of what our mother’s rooms were in there wasn’t a lot of them and they were just severely lacking in I would say Essentials that I think any mom needs her pumping and so I went back to my boss and they said we really need to make some changes to the spaces and we need to add more spaces. And so I ended up creating a budget that got approved and we were able to completely overhaul all of our mother’s rooms to where they all have table cleaning supplies. Some of them even have sinks.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) we have sound machines mirrors because after you pump you got to make sure everything’s back and where it needs to be in place and we also allocated budget to decorate them too because we wanted to for these spaces to be not only functional but comfortable as well and that initiative took on a second phase where it was Now we have these beautiful spaces for our pumping mamas to go to when they need to pump but do our employees in general both men and women and our supervisors. Do they know how to best handle when their employee comes to them and tells them that they’re expecting and so that led to phase two of this project where we ended up creating these resource guides that basically walked through hey, you’re a mom to be here’s four different phases.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Of things that we want you to think about and consider as you go through your expecting a baby experience. So it’s like how do you announce it? And then once you’ve announced it during your pregnancy, what are some things we would suggest that you do as you prepare to go out on leave and then we talked about okay, the big events have arrived you, have your baby. Here’s what we recommend, make sure you get them on your insurance plan and then we actually do say

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) In there disconnect enjoy that time with your baby and then we even have advice for returning to work. So we’ve created documents for both moms and dads in those situations. And then we also created a supervisor training for it because supervisors. I believe for the most part they are well-intended, they wanted you right by their employees, but they don’t often know how to best approach. I work for a stem company. We have had a lot of Engineers historically and there I should say stereotypically are not known for being strong communicators who know best how to handle these things all the time. Bless them. They’re awesome. But they just don’t have a lot of experience with it. And so we created a conversation checklist for them. So if they have employed this as I’m expecting they don’t have a foot in the mouth moment or they actually have almost like a script to say this

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Congratulations. Let’s talk through a few things. And so we created that for them as well. So really really proud of this initiative it needed to be done and it took a Really Brave employee coming forward and saying hey this doesn’t feel right and because of her we were able to make these huge necessary changes and it’s something that we’re now really proud of and are grateful that we’re to provide for our employees

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I love that. I think that reiterates what we’re talking about earlier, just that it’s a two-sided thing. It’s both in the hands of the employer and in the hands of the woman who’s pregnant or has had the child’s and that communication between the two is super important and you don’t want the mom, just being silent by standard and dealing with pumping in a teeny locker room or whatever and the employer would want to know about that, and make it right and make it better for anybody who needs that better experience, …

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Absolutely.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And so yeah just comes down to that communication with those It’s so you were gonna say.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) no. I agree with Absolutely. I mean having a baby and coming back to work. It’s a very vulnerable time and I feel like it’s a missed opportunity for employers, if you don’t try to make it as best of an experience as you can I mean you may have some parents who are super excited to come back and they’re ready to kind of have that side of themselves that intrinsic excited them that enjoys that working. They may be excited and you might have other parents who are just having a really hard time and are struggling and that’s why I think it’s just important for supervisors and employers to say we’re so glad that you’re back.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Okay, if you’re having a hard time with it, we’re here to support you. We’re here to welcome you back, get you up to speed at the pace that you need to and make this as easy to transition as we can knowing that your heart may not be here right now and that’s okay.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And such a great idea to have those documents in place to help make that transition more seamless and honestly any employer would want to make things great for both of you and you guys are so reliable so knowledgeable and it was so great to have both of you on here sharing your experiences both in the workplace at home and with those transitions. Thank you so much you guys for joining us and for sharing your thoughts and perspectives with our listeners.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Thank you, and I’ll just add one last comment from the dad’s perspective. It’s a big change for fathers as well, both for welcoming that baby and also supporting your wife who just delivered this child and is also physically recovering and supporting them. And so it’s a big thing for everyone involved. I love that space Dynamics laboratory also considered the supervisor as one of those key individuals in that before Darren and after plan, so those three different plans for the key individuals in that changing situation mother’s dads and supervisors and thank you for this time to share anything before we close Kristina McHale any final thoughts?

Kristina Peterson (Guest): No, not too many. Just thank you for having us on and thanks to Mickelle for letting me drag her over. She was willing, but would Matt first reached out to me. I worked with Mickelle and was talking to her about it, and this opened up.

Kristina Peterson (Guest): This whole opportunity to collaborate together and find out this is one of her passion projects. And when she says I think a lot of these things were actually her implementing that I think she is being humble and that she made a lot of these changes and…

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I believe.

Kristina Peterson (Guest): and seen plans and pictures of these rooms that they upgraded and I think it’s just a great example of what a company can do to really be comprehensive what it’s maternity coverage and planning and I love that you include the supervisors because knowledge is power and so being able to educate everybody involved wherever they might be in the process is so important.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Here’s those three Kristina…

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.edit

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) What she didn’t share was that when she told me about it. I almost volunteered to be part of your podcast as well.

Kristina Peterson (Guest): I was so glad.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) I was

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’re so glad we had both of you. Thank you so much you guys. Yeah, and…

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Thank you.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Thanks for everyone. Definitely follow Mickelle and Kristina on LinkedIn will include links to their profiles make sure to subscribe and leave a review and we’ll see you next time. Thank you.

Mickelle Anderson: (Guest) Thank you.

Kristina Peterson (Guest): Thank you.